bornrich

On my trip home from an autox it came to my attention my passenger headlight was out low beam. I just figured the bulb was out. I bought a new h7 55w bulb and replaced it. Still no light.
I check ed the fuses that they are still good. I don't have a volt meter to go much further. I have seen where the headlight switch can go bad but would that affect only one head light?
Any other ideas would be appreciated. I did visually check the wire in the headlight assembly and I see no breaks or corrosion.

Kalashnikov

Headlight switch. Try playing with and see if light turns on.

bornrich

I tried to wiggle it and there was no change. I was hoping fir a more definitive result as the switch cost more tha $160.

DBJoe996

Buy a cheap voltmeter and check the voltage at the connector. 12V there means switch is good and something else is wrong. No 12V means the switch is probably bad. Also clean the headlight connections with some electrical cleaner, especially where the headlight seats in the headlamp frame.

kbollaert

Had to replace both headlight mount assemblies b/c the area that held the electrical connectors had cracked, thus not allowing a good connection to the headlight wiring.

bornrich

Thanks I will give this a try. Is there a diagram for the pins in the headlight socket? Blindly checking pins may not be a valuable exercise. I have been trying to google it but what I have found has not been valuable so far.

DBJoe996

bornrich

Please forgive my total electrical noobness. But I have tried to set the tool to what I think I need to and tried check the voltage. Do I just ground the blk probe and then just poke in each of the slots in the socket? I am not clear on how the diagram relates to the socket I'm testing. It look like I just pace the red probe into the fourth slot down to check my low beam. I am seeing nothing (i.e. no volts) so far. I want to be sure I am doing this right.

Mark I

Is the ground (black) connector attached to anything?

bornrich

In the pic I was just showing the setting on the multimeter. I tried touching the blk probe to a grd bolt. I can't tell if there is a grd on the socket so I was trying various bolts within reach of the probe.

Paul Waterloo

Yes, you put one on ground (I use a little wire with alligator clips on both ends, one on the multimeter lead, one on a ground connection), then probe with the other one.

On the wiring diagram, with the low beams on, you should have 12 volts going to Pin 9, and with the high beams on, 12 volts going to Pin 2. Pin 4 is ground (see it goes to "GP1", ground point 1 on the car) for the low beam and Pin 1 is ground for the high beam.

DBJoe996

Looks right. Turn on your low beam lights. The drivers side should light up. Ground the black wire of the voltmeter and run up and down the pin connectors to see if there is any voltage. You will also run across the side marker lamp which will have voltage to it. If you run across only one pin connector with voltage, and the side marker is lit/hot (pin 6/green/red wire), then your light switch is faulty for the low beam. You are looking for the pin connector 9 with a yellow wire attached to it.

You did actually check the fuses...right?

bornrich

Thanks Yes I did check the fuses. They looked good and I even swapped them to be sure.
How do the pin location map to the socket?

1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8

or
1 5
2 6
3 7
4 8

the bottom two spots seem to be empty. Also on the headlight side the pin location (5 top version or 3 bottom version) there is no pin.



I want to verify my findings as in I can see 12 volts when the hight beams are on and then check the low beams to hopefully verify that the headlight switch is bad although I still don't see why of only one side of the low beam is failing. Thanks every one this is really enlightening. No pun intended. :-)

Paul Waterloo

The pin numbers should be visible on the connector with a magnifying glass if you need to use one (I do).

Or just start taking measurements on voltage, you won't hurt anything, write it on a piece of paper and you can figure it out from the pin outs above.

Paul Waterloo

Normally the pins go like this...

1 8
2 7
3 6
4 5